In the prior art, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-249089, for example, discloses a head-protecting airbag device which includes a vertically extended sliding rail in a pillar portion for smoothing airbag deployment along windows. The airbag device includes an airbag provided with a guide member to be connected to the sliding rail.
With this arrangement, however, the airbag device cannot be constructed compactly because the airbag device requires a vertically elongate sliding rail to be located in the pillar portion while the folded airbag itself is housed in the upper edge of windows. In addition, when the airbag device is mounted on a vehicle, as the sliding rail is attached to the pillar portion, the folded airbag has to be mounted on the vehicle with the guide member connected to the sliding rail. This and an extensive working area required in the mounting work conjointly complicate the mounting work.
Moreover, the pillar portion is usually provided with a pillar garnish on the vehicle's interior side. When the sliding rail is covered with the pillar garnish in consideration of appearance, the garnish needs to include an opening such that the guide member may smoothly slide in the sliding rail. In other words, with the above arrangement, the pillar garnish must be changed to one in which an opening can be formed.